


Recalibration

by Fabrisse



Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 19:35:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fabrisse/pseuds/Fabrisse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zaphod's sunglasses need some help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recalibration

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mayhap](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayhap/gifts).



> Undauntra gave me the spark of idea and helped me work through a couple of issues. Gileswench betaed, as she did all my Yuletide 2012 stories.

The glasses worked. Zaphod swore under his breath. Of course, they worked. The Joo Janta Corporation was one of the most respected* business entities in the galaxy. 

He put the cotton swab back in its container and the blackness receded. He could see again. Zaphod scratched his ear** and reached for the cotton swab. Once again, both sets of eyes were engulfed in total blackness.

At this moment, he did something he truly dreaded. He picked up the manual and read:

“The Joo Janta Corporation is dedicated to making its customers the coolest consumers in the known galaxy. In order to calibrate your level of acceptable danger, please follow the eighty simple steps outlined over the next two hundred ninety seven pages.”

He shut the book firmly and put it back down.

It only took a few minutes before he was bored enough to reopen it at random. His glasses went black, and it finally occurred to him that he could leave them on one head and read with the other. 

After a little bit of squabbling, his reasoning head was left to do the reading.

As best he could tell, and he’d turned the illustration around several times, it would take all three arms to calibrate the damned things. On the plus side, the furthest calibration before blackness was “nuclear missile/photon torpedo/inertialess plasma fired directly in your face.***” 

He began again with the first page of the introduction. It read, “The Joo Janta Corporation is proud to present its latest entry into the ‘I’m Coolest of All’ Line of clothing and accessories.” Zaphod was pleased. He already had several pair of their black, button fly jeans with the eVeR-drI**** linings. They’d come in handy on several occasions (for instance, when that photon torpedo was pointed at him). Plus, their leather jackets came with a variety of sleeve options depending on size, number, and flexibility of limbs. As far as Joo Janta was concerned, every species could not only aspire, it could attain, the epitome of cool.

All of which only served to distract Zaphod from the immediate problem: How to calibrate these Belgium and all of the Benelux (Ford had taught him that epithet the last time they’d communicated) sunglasses. 

He could ask the ship, but he was worried _Heart of Gold_ might send him the new Sirius Cybernetics Company android they’d found on board. In a galaxy filled with things ranging from the slightly odd to the ineluctably weird, Marvin was near the event horizon of that scale. Not to mention any request he made might be interpreted as a request for destination, and the infinite improbability drive was another thing at the ineluctably weird end of the strangeness scale.

No, he was definitely going to have to figure this out for himself. Another random opening of the book finally explained why his right head kept being enveloped in blackness. The lowest end of the scale was “paper cut.”

Trillian’s voice came over the tannoy, and announced the Improbability Drive would be used to get to their next destination. She advised everyone to strap in.

Two impossibly -- or improbably -- long minutes later. They were informed that they had acquired two passengers and apparently one of them was Ford. He greeted his semi-hemi-demi-cousin and wondered aloud where he’d picked up the trained monkey.

After finding out that the monkey was upset about his planet disappearing -- and, seriously, who knew the great apes were that evolved? -- and that the monkey prefered to walk around in a dressing gown and call himself Arthur, Zaphod went back to the more pressing issue of calibrating his danger glasses. (He liked calling them that. It sounded cool.) Marvin offered to talk to them until they capitulated, but Zaphod was saving that for a last resort.

Arthur wandered by complaining about a hot drink that tasted nearly, but not entirely, unlike tea, as he went to find a source of comfort.

Zaphod thought for a moment, and went after him. “Look, monkey-guy, I’m sorry we got off on the wrong elbow, but it occurred to me that your primitive mind might be able to help me with a problem I’m having.”

Arthur regarded Zaphod like half a worm in the salad of life, and said, “My planet’s just been destroyed. I’m one of only two human survivors. I can’t find a decent cup of tea, and you think you have a problem?”

“I’m trying to calibrate my sunglasses.”

“I assume there was a manual,” Arthur said with a sigh.

“Two hundred ninety seven pages of steps to follow.”

“No,” Arthur said. “There are two types of people in this world...” He stopped sadly, took a deep breath, and continued, “In this galaxy: those who read the manual and those who won’t. I will not help someone who can’t be arsed to do the basic reading.”

Ford poked his head into the corridor. “Zaphod’s great at intergalactic conkers, but not so good on the reading. Look, ask the guide. At the very least, you’ll be comforted by the friendly lettering.”

Each of Zaphod’s head’s raised an eyebrow at Ford. “I’m not asking that book anything. If I won’t ask the paranoid android, I’m not going to ask the book.”

Arthur took the book from Ford. “What are these things called?”

 

Ford grinned at Zaphod and said, “Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses”

Arthur repeated the name to the book, and received the beginnings of a potted history of the Joo Janta Corporation. “How do I get it to stop?” he asked.

Ford hit the off switch, and rebooted the book. He shrugged and said to Arthur, “Why don’t you ask the first question that comes to mind?”

“About sunglasses?”

“Yeah,” Ford said.

Arthur thought for a moment. “Tell me how to get this man to stop annoying me.”

The book answered brightly, _“When encountering an annoying life form two options are open: one, hide until it goes away or two, threats.”_

Arthur turned to Zaphod and said, “If you annoy me again, I’ll make one head watch while I remove the other.” He stalked off in search of a better class of tea.

Ford said, “Hey, your glasses didn’t turn black. That was a clear threat, even if humans aren’t the smartest life form in the galaxy, they get high marks for violence levels.”

Zaphod smiled on both his faces. “Threats work. Why didn’t I think of that? Don’t disturb me for at least half a cycle. I have some threats to make.” He looked at Ford thoughtfully, “Do you think reprogramming them with an ax or telling them I’ll have Marvin explain the futility of existence will work better?”

Ford blinked. “Marvin. Definitely.”

 

 

* For a given value of “respected.”

** Right head, left ear, third arm.

*** Zaphod had had a photon torpedo _aimed_ at his face once, though not fired. He knew he wanted the glasses to be somewhat more sensitive than that. 

**** eVeR-drI is a registered trademark of the Joo Janta Corporation. Copyright infringement is punishable by Vogon warship. With poetry readings.


End file.
